The Phantom Photographer: Murder in Marin Mystery - Book 3 (Murder in Marin Mysteries) (14 page)

One bit of information that made Michael sit up and take notice was his comment that Herb Fancher, Jr., a local businessman and member of the Mill Valley Planning Commission, who had just announced his candidacy for the Marin County Board of Supervisors was, “a nasty piece of work.”

“How so?” Michael asked, as he feigned casual interest.
 

“Well, I’m pretty sure that he’s a player. You know, fools around behind his wife’s back, but even worse, I think he pushes her around.”

“What do you mean, pushes her around?”

“You know, smacks her now and then.”

“Really? Wow! If that’s true, it wouldn’t go down very well with the voters.”

“Yeah, you think?” Walt snorted in response.
 

“How do you know about this?” Michael asked.

“There’s just something about him that makes me think he could be an abuser. I noticed when he thought she was getting too comfortable talking with me at a chamber mixer that he almost pulled her arm out when he said, ‘Let’s get going; we’ll be late for our dinner.’ If that guy thinks I’m a threat, an overweight photography nerd with a walrus mustache, he must have some real issues.”

“Sounds like a weird dude,” Michael responded with the casual indifference he had perfected while working Milton for information on potential targets. But a few hours later, when his shift ended, he went over to the Mill Valley Library, which offered extended evening hours several nights each week. Michael sat close to the library’s oversized fireplace, which was lit, and reviewed articles in the county newspaper from the past two months about Fancher’s Board of Supervisors race.

The first thing that he learned was that Herb senior had started the family construction firm. Herb, Jr. was apparently an only child and was now the firm’s president. His primary school was Stuart Hall, which sits up on one of the highest points of San Francisco’s Pacific Heights Neighborhood. And for high school, he attended St. Ignatius, followed by the Jesuit institution, University of San Francisco, all the choices often made by Bay Area residents who were sober minded, devout, and well connected.
 

One story had a picture of both Fancher, Jr. and his wife, Suzette, taken two months earlier during a party to celebrate their third wedding anniversary. Fancher referred to Suzette as, “his rock.” Then added, “I know she’ll be there to support me throughout this race. No man could ask for a better life partner.”

Jeez, Michael thought. This guy could be ripe for the picking if just a small part of what Walt suspects turns out to be correct. He smiled when he saw that the Fanchers lived on Marion Road, the next narrow roadway just below Hazel.

Before leaving the library, he stopped in the town’s history room, where Mrs. Fitzsimmons was keeping herself busy working a late shift.
 

“Michael, it’s wonderful that you take such an interest in the town’s history.”

“I’m just loving learning about the town and its people.”

Excusing himself, he went over and looked at a book of land plats that gave him a very good idea of exactly where Fancher’s property aligned with the nearest property on Hazel.
 

The next day, Michael was up several hours before he needed to report to work. He walked down Hazel and doubled back onto Marion until he was standing in front of Fancher’s property. He looked up behind Herb and Suzette’s home toward Hazel, attempting to make mental notes of various geographic markers along the hillside. Now his only question was to locate a place where, below Hazel and above Marion, he could best look in on the private lives of the candidate, the suspected abuser, and his wife, the likely victim.
 

Walking along the narrow shoulder of Hazel, which often disappeared, leaving nothing but a fairly steep drop-off; Michael walked slowly, looking down on a target that he reasoned was thirty to forty feet below him. He stopped at the address that appeared on the property plats to be best aligned with the Fancher home and its distinctive thatched roof that he noticed on his previous walk.
 

Now he could confirm his suspicion that the home had a back deck, and if he was fortunate, perhaps some of the unpleasantness between Herb and Suzette might occur out there. But, most importantly, was there a way to look into the back of the house: the living room, their bedroom or hopefully both?

Michael stepped off the edge of Hazel road and walked carefully down the slope. He had instant flashbacks of Caleb, Christopher, and himself wandering down a wooded hillside on one of their many deer hunting trips.
 

About twenty feet down, he came along a small dugout, possibly created by children at some time in the past. He knew instantly that the spot offered an ideal hideout. With the surrounding trees and ground vegetation, there was an abundance of decaying leaves and wind-snapped branches that he could use to create his own little nest.
 

Having quickly built his hideout, his next challenge was to commit this location to memory and to find the safest path back up to Hazel. He considered whether a path down to Marion might be easier, but abandoned the thought as he noted that the homes along Marion were closer to the Fanchers, and Hazel offered the added security of an adjacent undeveloped lot.
 

The hill back up was reasonably easy to navigate. Although, now forty pounds above his ideal weight, Michael, who was just entering his late twenties, still had youthful vigor on his side.

To assure his finding his way up and back, he took a blue cloth rag he kept in his camera bag and tore it into strips. Every six feet, he tied one of those strips to a small branch and felt reasonably certain that he would find his way back down to this spot at dusk that coming Sunday.

By now, Michael was certainly not a novice to the business of spying, but this game of hide and seek in the canyons of Mill Valley presented challenges that he had not yet encountered. Having to feather a nest in a dugout along a steep hillside was certainly more challenging than rolling into the high grass opposite the home where Fred and Nora were enjoying a tryst. But Michael welcomed the challenge. He saw it as part of the opportunity and the excitement of working in this varied and challenging terrain.

At dusk that Sunday afternoon, with the setting sun creating an increasingly dramatic glow from behind Mt. Tam, Michael walked quietly along Hazel, camera bag in tow, to where he found the stick with a small blue strip tied around it, sitting just inches off the paved road. He followed his markers down to the dugout he had made and nestled down inside.

He was pleased to see the lights in the Fancher home already lit. And on this relatively mild evening, Herb and Suzette were having drinks outside on the home’s spacious redwood deck. Through his telephoto lens, Michael was surprised by the seductive way in which Suzette was dressed.
 

Shit, she’s hot, Michael thought, as he snapped a couple of tight shots capturing her cleavage for his personal collection. Herb was certainly feeling frisky because he ran his left hand down her neck to inside her dress, where he cupped one of her breasts and bent down for a long deep kiss. All expertly done while he balanced a full martini glass in his right hand.
 

Smooth operator, Michael thought, as he looked on in envy.

Neither of them appeared to be the least bit shy about enjoying their drinks and each other in the fresh evening air. One wonderful feature about so many of Mill Valley’s canyon homes is that on raised stilts jutting out of the side of a canyon wall, they afforded their residents what most assumed was total privacy.
 

Herb placed his drink on the cocktail table and dropped down to his knees. At which point, to Michael’s surprise, Suzette slapped him hard against the cheek. Herb stood up, pulled on the back of her hair, and slapped her back. This had the effect of getting them both a little crazy, and they suddenly began tugging at each other’s clothing. Meanwhile, Michael was focusing and clicking just as fast as his equipment allowed.

Suzette stood up on a chair and Herb came up behind her and carried her into the living room, placing her down on the couch. He disappeared for a time, and then returned with a massage table. He methodically undressed his wife and then placed Suzette face down and covered her with a sheet. Slowly, he caressed her with kisses along her back and shoulders. Then Herb went off again to another room.

Michael lost sight of Herb for a time, but thanks to a large floor to ceiling window, a feature in many Mill Valley homes, allowing for unfettered views of the glories of the great outdoors, Michael had an unimpaired view of the great indoors.
 

What a lucky bastard I am, Michael thought, unaware that he was about to get luckier still.

Herb returned wearing nothing except bright red bikini briefs and carrying a black leather-riding crop. Crack went the small jockey’s whip with a slap against Suzette’s buttocks. The muffled sound came through the massive windows and echoed almost imperceptibly around the canyon. Michael could hear the sound of a second slap as he clicked and giggled in his cozy hideout. Suzette pleaded with him to stop, but Herb cracked her again with his riding crop. Her cries for mercy were likely an essential part of their shared enjoyment.

Their carnal pleasure continued, appearing to be a blend of S&M brutality and Kama Sutra abandon, finally concluding in Suzette bringing Herb to an angrily vocalized climax in an act of oral copulation.
 

Michael was delighted with what he was quite certain were the most explicit images he had ever achieved.

Not long after, with the two lovers wrapped in oversized terry cloth robes, curled around each other and sipping snifters of brandy as they listened to classical music, Michael made his retreat out of the dugout. Although not fully dark yet, he had brought a small pocket flashlight to help avoid unexpected roots and rocks on his way back to Hazel. He walked home quickly, and not being able to resist the urge to see the images he had just created, he got in his car and made the short drive down to the camera shop, where Walt, like Milton, had made his darkroom available to this promising and apparently trustworthy young photographer.

Michael was greatly pleased with nearly all the images that emerged. “Sweet Jesus,” Michael muttered to himself. “I’m a fucking genius.”

The following day, Michael returned to the library to learn a little more about Herb Fancher, Jr. He was certainly an ambitious man. At thirty-eight years old, he was managing the construction firm his father had founded in 1950. Under his leadership, the firm had grown into one of Marin County’s largest private sector employers.. He served as one of the city’s five planning commissioners, and in the past had been frequently mentioned as a potential candidate for the five-member Marin County Board of Supervisors, the body from which Barbara Boxer began her ascent to the United States Senate.

Suzette was a shapely woman just a few years younger than her husband. As he reread articles on the library’s microfiche system, he was troubled by the recurring thought that there was something indescribably different about the Suzette pictured at various city and county events faithfully standing by her husband’s side, and the woman he had captured at play with Herb less than twenty-four hours earlier.